


The Philosopher's King

by phoenixyfriend



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Fade to Black, Fluff, Human/Monster Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Multi, Nightmares, Philosophy, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 00:01:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20536829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: Tarvek may not be the Storm King, but he's certainly gotoneperson interested in playing along to his fashionable whims.





	The Philosopher's King

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Girl Genius Events tumblr Rarepair Challenge of the Month. Can be found here: girlgeniusevents.tumblr.com/post/187144180695

Tarvek does many things in excess, though he doesn’t like to admit it. He prides himself on being able to stop before his fugues get out of control, before he drinks too much, before he says something he really shouldn’t. He’s not _perfect,_ but that self-control is what got him through his home life. It’s what helped him survive for as long as he did.

This is all to say that Tarvek tries very hard to be aware of how close he is to crossing a line. He still _crosses_ them, usually in the form of getting to invested in someone or something; he’s been assured time and again that the people he gets invested in don’t mind, and that that’s not a failing.

He’s been assured time and again that his tendency to stick to a plan so closely that he’s incapable of improvising, on the other hand, is a massive fucking problem.

Tarvek’s had a lot of plans. He’s been getting better at improvising. He’s still not great at it, especially in situations like this.

“Hyu saved mine life, effen if it vos a lot of trouble for hyu,” Jorgi says. He’s loping along beside Tarvek, hands in his pockets and easily keeping up with Tarvek’s frenzied attempts to find that damn swatch.

Cotton knit. Why did he decide on cotton knit?

“You didn’t need to offer to be my _personal assistant,”_ Tarvek grouses. “Hold this.”

Jorgi takes the roll of fabric that Tarvek thrusts at him, and Tarvek is vaguely aware of him juggling it in a frantic bout to avoid piercing the fabric with his claws by accident.

“Hyu like heffing an assistant.”

_“An_ assistant,” Tarvek says. “You don’t even know the difference between tulle and organza.”

“Hy ken learn,” Jorgi says, a touch defensively.

“And risk the other Jägerkin finding out? Heaven forbid,” Tarvek says. Cotton, cotton, cotton…

“Iz vot dey call a dilemma,” Jorgi sighs dramatically. “Hy ken deal vit mine brudders meking fun of me, though, especially since de Lady told me to do dis ven I told her about vot hyu did for me and dot I vonted to pay hyu beck.”

“So you can blame Agatha if it really becomes an issue,” Tarvek summarizes. Where the _hell_ is that cotton knit?

“Iz hyu looking for dis vun?”

Tarvek almost doesn’t turn to look, but Jorgi’s made a habit of surprising him, so he does. Lo and behold, the lavender grey cotton knit swatch.

“Where did you find that?”

Jorgi grins, all teeth. “Hyu put it in de sketch book.”

Tarvek looks at the swatch, and then over at the sketchbook. He would have gotten around to looking in there eventually. Probably.

“Hy got de goot eyes und de better memory,” Jorgi tells him. “Hy am verra goot at finding tings.”

Tarvek narrows his eyes and then nods sharply. “Fine. You can stick around to help. But _don’t_ touch anything without asking, some of this is _very _delicate.”

“Hyu gots it!”

o.o.o.o.o

Tarvek kneads at his temples and breathes out slowly through his nose. It doesn’t relieve much of the tension, but it’s got a placebo effect, and his emotions lift a little. He needs to take a break.

“Hy thought hyu vos goink to be doing de fashion stuff to relax tonight?”

Tarvek doesn’t start when Jorgi’s voice sounds out, but that’s only because he’s very, _very_ good. Most people wouldn’t have noticed the Jäger sneaking his way into the room.

“Why are you here?” he asks, rather than answering Jorgi’s question.

“Thought hyu might vont some tea,” Jorgi says, swinging off a windowsill and into the room proper. Not a drop is spilled. “Hy got eet from de little lobster.”

“Zoing,” Tarvek says. “I thought he was up on the airship?”

Jorgi shrugs. “Mebbe he vos. Izn’t now. Hy tink he vonted to see de cat.”

Tarvek decides to ignore that, and takes the tea.

“Hyu iz verra tired,” Jorgi says. He leans against the table, arms crossed. “Hyu needs some sleep, sveethot?”

Tarvek wrinkles his nose. “Most likely, but there isn’t time. There was a tabloid in Vienna that started up some rumors, and—well, it _shouldn’t_ have blown up as it did, but now it’s threatening the stability we’ve built, and it’s not like Wulfenbach can handle this sort of thing, and Agatha’s got bigger things to worry about, and—”

Jorgi’s hand is over his mouth.

“Hyu izn’t goink to be getting moch dun, hyu know,” Jorgi says conversationally. “Iffen hyu izn’t getting enough sleep, hyu’s goink to be meking mistakes.”

Tarvek wrenches the hand away. “Oh, a psychologist as well as a philosopher, now? Full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“Hoy! Hy tek offense to dot! Hy izn’t a brains doctor, iz chust common sense!”

“I’ll be fine,” Tarvek sighs. “This is too time-sensitive.”

“Ken’t hyu ask hyu cousins to help?”

“Probably, but I can’t trust them not to twist it to their own advantage,” Tarvek grumbled. He took another sip of tea.

“And de seneschal? Eet iz _hiz_ job, too.”

Tarvek paused, then shook his head. “He has too much work already.”

“So do hyu.”

“It’s different.”

“How?”

“Smoke Knight training.”

“Seneschal training.”

Tarvek glared at Jorgi. “Stop trying to make me slack off.”

“Hy’m not trying to mek hyu sleck off! Hy’m chust trying to mek hyu tek a break.”

“I don’t need a—put me _down!”_

“Hyu needs to sleep,” Jorgi says, and dumps Tarvek on the cot he’s got in his office for this exact purpose. “Hy’ll sit on hyu. Ve Jägerkin, ve iz _heavy._ Hy’ll tell de Lady, too, und den she’s goink to be looking at hyu vit de beeg sad eyes, and hyu iz goink to feel oll bed for makink her vorry. Und den Hy’ll tell de young Wulfenbach, und den, _den,_ Hy’ll tell Meester Higgs.”

“I—fine,” Tarvek huffed, crossing his arms and lying down on his side, a half-curled body radiating displeasure. “But I’m not going to be happy about it.”

Jorgi grins widely, and Tarvek flips over to face the wall.

o.o.o.o.o

To Tarvek’s annoyance, this is not the last time this happens. No, Jorgi decides to make it a _habit_, bullying Tarvek to bed.

He doesn’t like to admit that he does, in fact appreciate it.

o.o.o.o.o

Tarvek wakes up with a shudder in his chest and a scream trapped behind his teeth, one of those nights. He can’t find any of the people he’d usually go to, in this situation. The muses are out searching for their lost and damaged sisters, and the humans he’d trust aren’t any closer. Agatha’s in Skifander for something related to the kolee-dok-zumil bond, and Gil followed her so he could visit his mother. Tarvek had stayed behind because there was just _too much work_ to be done, and he wasn’t going to ask for Violetta to come back to him after she’d decided she _liked_ devoting her life to protecting Agatha.

“Hoy! Vot’s de—”

“Get _away!”_ Tarvek snaps. His hands come up to claw at his collar, because he can’t _breathe,_ he can’t take a single _fucking _breath of—

His shirt is ripped off wholesale by furry brown hands that definitely don’t belong to him. He still can’t breathe, but at least it doesn’t feel like his shirt is at fault for constricting him.

Jorgi’s saying something. Tarvek doesn’t care what. There’s a person here, and Tarvek never even _asked_ for this one, or even agreed to having him, not really, but he’s here and Tarvek’s going to use that.

He grabs at Jorgi’s wrists when the Jäger reaches for his shoulders, and starts to squeeze. Putting pressure on something else is something he can _do_ despite the screams that echo through his memories. He’s at fault for more of them than he isn’t, because these are all of his father’s victims, and Tarvek had long been used as the perfect honeypot for those girls. He can’t rid his hands of that blood. He never has, and he never will, and he can’t rid his memory of them either.

But putting pressure on something or someone else? That helps. That helps more than he can explain, probably, especially since he knows that if he hurts himself in reaction to his own dreams, he’s going to have to deal with everyone who _cares_ about him trying to get involved. And Jorgi’s sturdy, he’s a Jäger so he _has_ to be, and Tarvek can squeeze to the best of his strength and still not hurt him.

Jorgi lets him.

“Hyu gots de brain veasels, huh?”

“Th-the,” Tarvek swallows in a sharp breath that stabs like a knife. “The what?”

“Brain veasels. Hyu know,” Jorgi said, gesturing vaguely around his head with one foot, since his arms are occupied by Tarvek’s still-clenched death’s grip. “Ven hyu thoughts get oll bitey and run around in de crazy circles end dey iz too slippery for hyu to ketch dem und mek dem shtop.”

Tarvek stared at him, his breathing calming down almost miraculously in the face of his confusion.

“Iz a goot comparison!”

“I—I _guess?”_ Tarvek manages to say. “Why weasels?”

“Dey iz _extra_ slippery, und fest, und dey run in de zig-zags und into de small holes und… dey is very hard to ketch und dey get _everyvhere.”_

“—do you just hate weasels or something?” Tarvek manages to ask, just a little helplessly.

“No, Hy luff dem! But dey iz a good vay to talk about de funny brain shtuff, sometimes,” Jorgi says. He twists his arms in a way that Tarvek’s still a little too wibbly to follow, and suddenly Tarvek finds himself in Jorgi’s lap.

Um.

What.

“Um, what?”

“Most of mine brudders, ven dey get like dis, dey like to heff one of us nearby, becawze ven hyu iz touching somevun, hyu gots something to keep hyu brain vhere it iz, not vhere it shouldn’t be.”

Tarvek decides he can’t be bothered to argue right now. The thing keeping him in place is his own grip on Jorgi’s wrists; he could leave the lap he’s in at any time, should he try. He doesn’t. He just sits there and tries to keep his mind from running back to his nightmares.

“Hyu know,” Jorgi says, almost conversationally. “Dere voz dis thing dot Plato said, dot humans hed four arms and two heads, but Zeus tore dem in heff becawze he feared what dey could become, und so all humans iz stuck trying to find dere odder half for dere whole lives.”

“I’ve read Plato, you know,” Tarvek says. “It’s… a romantic notion.”

“Hy _hates_ it,” Jorgi says. “Vhy does Plato vont to think dot everyvon’s only gots de vun person to love? Hyu, hyu gots both de Lady und de young Baron, und dey heff hyu and each odder. Hy’ve met lots of people vot I loved de vay Plato talked about. Some people, dey don’t even like vun person in a vay dot meks dem vont to merry dem! Eez verra shtupid vay to look at de vorld.”

“…you have a lot of strong opinions on Plato,” Tarvek says, because he’s noted it before but it’s _still_ somehow surprising.

“Eef Hy thought eet vos possible, Hy’d ask a Heterodyne to breeng heem beck from de dead chust so Hy could fight heem,” Jorgi said. “Hy’ve thought about it _lots_. Hy vont to feel heez nose break under mine fist.”

“Sure,” Tarvek says. He too has felt the urge to get in a full-on brawl with long-dead masters. “I can understand that.”

“Hyu know who hed de right idea? Diogenes. Dot man lived in a barrel und he med fun of Plato und Socrates und he yelled dot a chicken vos a man to show all de odder schmot guyz chust how shtupid dey voz.”

“…I mean you’re not… _wrong…”_ Tarvek says. He feels like this conversation has gone wildly off the rails, except there were never really any rails to being with. Maybe it’s like Saturnus’s train, running around and eating everything in sight with no regard for the rules. “But don’t you have opinions on anything more modern? Robespierre, perhaps? Locke? Kant?”

“Hy vont to fight dem all,” Jorgi says. “Hy dun even kare who dey are. Only Diogenes iz valid, becawze he vos de philosopher who said philosophy was shtupid.”

“That’s certainly a way to take it.”

“Iz de hottest tek,” Jorgi declares. “Philosophy dun gots to be difficult. Iz verra easy. Hyu dun gots to give eet all de fancy names like consekvenchialism und acosmism und ontological rekonstrukshonism. Iz too much.”

Tarvek pulls away from Jorgi and stares at him. “You’re telling me you know what all those mean.”

“Iz verra unfortunate, but yes.”

“…doesn’t that make _you_ a philosopher yourself, to some degree? You know the theories and have opinions on them. You’ve talked enough that I know you have deep and complicated feelings, especially. You’re a philosopher too.”

“Hy’ll _fight hyu!”_

“Only if you provide me with a three page paper on why a fight is the rational response to this accusation first,” Tarvek says, on a whim.

Jorgi narrows his eyes, and then grins with sharp, sharp teeth. “Fine. Hyu gots a deal.”

“…wait, what.”

o.o.o.o.o

Tarvek sincerely regrets this.

The paper is good, even. The citation is woefully out of date, but Jorgi knows what he’s talking about and even goes into three paragraphs on transcendental realism. It’s even been proofread by Vanamonde, who left a little note at the bottom that they were surprised by how well-read Jorgi was, and promised to not tell Agatha to promote him, or to tell the rest of the army about it.

This means that Tarvek has to fight him.

Tarvek doesn’t want to fight a Jäger.

He does anyway.

_This_ is what he regrets.

o.o.o.o.o

“I’m glad to know you’ve been getting along with Jorgi,” Agatha says one day, as Tarvek’s fitting her for a gown to a ball they’ll be attending in a few weeks’ time. She’s going to look _resplendent_, but the half-dressed vision in the mirror isn’t exactly bad either. His fingers itch, torn between ripping the corset off of her to have a little fun, and sewing up the most gorgeous, terrifying dress he can.

“I suppose that’s a normal thing to expect,” Tarvek says, pinning a piece in place and then deciding the drape is wrong. He pulls the pin and adjusts. “He’s quite intelligent, as far as Jägers go. At least, well, he doesn’t _hide_ it as much.”

“Mm,” Agatha hums softly, looking at him in the mirror. “Listen, I… I know you’ve had rather less to do, since Martellus got the throne—”

“It’s defunct anyway,” Tarvek mutters, because he’s not bitter. He’s _not_, and if he tells himself that enough times, maybe he’ll even believe it.

“—and Gil and I, well, we spend quite a lot of time away…” Agatha trails off.

“You want me to take a greater hand in the empire?” Tarvek asks. He can’t disguise the hope in his voice.

“I—well, I suppose if you _want_ to,” Agatha looks thoughtful. “I thought you had enough on your plate already with the intelligence work you were doing, but you _are_ a third of the triumvirate the Pax is running on. If you want to do more, I’m sure you could find something. I’m delegating most of mine anyway.”

Tarvek needs more to do. Not being the Storm King took a lot of wind out of his sails, and now he’s just determined to be useful and conniving enough to shove Tweedle’s ugly face in his own success.

“But that wasn’t what I was getting at,” Agatha says. “Really, it’s… well. It’s about, you know, _us.”_

Tarvek’s heart tightens.

“Our relationship is already rather… unconventional,” Agatha says. She sounds like she’s weighing her words carefully. “And, well, Heterodynes _do_ traditionally have consorts, and it’s not like old Andronicus was shy about his dalliances. Gil’s a sweetheart, but he’s really not as interested as you or I when it comes to… the carnal pleasure.”

Tarvek’s breath hitches. His fingers tighten against the thick, unyielding linen canvas that’s covering Agatha’s hip. He’s not sure she can feel it. The corset’s certainly sturdy enough.

“We can talk to him later of course, but I’m not sure Gil would mind…” Agatha trails off, and then meets Tarvek’s eyes in the mirror. “I mean, you do—you do understand what I’m getting at, right? I obviously won’t stray unless you’re both okay with it, but—”

“You want us to have lovers on the side,” Tarvek says.

“With some limitations, perhaps?” Agatha sound far more uncertain than she did before. She turns to face him, but she won’t meet his eyes. “I’d rather avoid simply sleeping about all willy-nilly, but we sometimes go _weeks_ without seeing each other. We could—we could make a list, perhaps, of people we would not begrudge the other for straying towards. Negotiate the terms, like we did for—for other things, in this regard. Expand the relationship, rather than opening it.”

Tarvek’s stomach roils, and he’s not sure if Agatha can _see_ the tightness in his cheeks, but Tarvek can certainly _feel_ it. “I…”

“We don’t have to,” Agatha says, stepping closer and putting a light hand to his chest. “I won’t stray if you don’t want me to.”

Tarvek swallows, throat dry, and his mind wanders back to what started this. They’d been talking about Jorgi, and—_oh._

“You were thinking—” Tarvek cuts himself off. “But can a Jäger properly consent? They’re—”

“Mine, not yours,” Agatha says firmly, a soft smile on her face. “And if I took interest, I’d certainly be careful on that front, but I’m sure that if anyone could figure out a way to phrase that question and argue the semantics of the relationship, it would be the two of you.”

Tarvek considers it, the sharp teeth and careful claws and clever words hiding behind the accent people associate with roving, book-dumb marauders all over Europa.

“Oh,” he says softly. “But—”

“I’ve seen the way he watches you,” Agatha tells him, and her voice is far, far too gentle for this. “I think he’d be more than a little open to it, when I’m not around. You may not be a Heterodyne, but you are a consort, one that’s proven himself in ways that mean that they view pleasing you as a large part of pleasing me, and _not_ in the way my mother did. They like you, my darling, quite a bit, and… well, you _are _very pretty.”

Tarvek is sure his face burns red at that.

Agatha turns back to the mirror. “So, the yoke?”

o.o.o.o.o

“—not ultimately a form of hedonism in itself?” Tarvek asks. The question is almost aggressive, in its own way. “If a person derives pleasure from helping others, then it is hedonistic to aid one’s fellow being, if not in the traditionally epicurean manner.”

“Hyu theenk too much,” Jorgi says flatly.

“You just don’t want to admit that I’m right,” Tarvek sniffs. “Or that you already _have_ an answer.”

“Iz chust not dat complicated,” Jorgi protests. “Eef a person iz liking de idea of being nice, den dot’s goot. Iz not needing oll of de big vords like ‘hedonism’ und ‘epicurean’ und ‘eudaimonia.’”

“See!” Tarvek whirls and jabs his pointer finger aggressively in Jorgi’s direction. “You know what _eudaimonia_ is. Stop playing dumb! Engage with the context if you know it!”

“Hy dun vanna,” Jorgi says. “Eet cawzes me pain to do so. Iz not very hedonistic, hyu know.”

Tarvek throws a pattern weight at him. Jorgi catches it with ease, and then lopes over to place it delicately back on the desk.

“Hyu iz de von vot iz a fan of de theological noncogneeteevizm,” Jorgi points out. “Und hyu say ‘oh my god!” oll de time. Iz a beeg theeng, don’t hyu theenk?”

“A common term that is utilized by gnostics and agnostics alike,” Tarvek snaps. “Irrelevant to the discussion of hedonism.”

“Iz so! Hyu say dot hyu theenk dot de vords ve hyuze for religious shtuff iz all made up, ja?”

“I have _met_ more than one god queen. I believe that religion often stems from the power they displayed and the need to—”

“Iz not relevant,” Jorgi says, grinning when Tarvek snaps his mouth shut and grinds his teeth. “So! Hyu dun believe in de gods, or even one god, but hyu steel go to church, ja?”

“For political reasons, mainly,” Tarvek says. He’s stiff and he can feel it. “It pays to keep up appearances.”

“Mebbe! But Hy theenk hyu gots more complicated feelings den dot,” Jorgi continues on. “Hyu talk about it _lots_, und Hy theenk hyu iz more of de transtheist.”

“An appealing notion, but not one I subscribe to,” Tarvek said.

“Hy like to theenk of dot vun as ‘God exists, but not here, und not in a vay dot really matters,’” Jorgi barrels along the track of his thoughts cheerily. “Und Hy theenk hyu _like_ dot vun.”

“As I said, it’s an appealing notion, but—”

“Dere’s lots of theengs hyu ken’t explain,” Jorgi says. “So let’s say hyu do theenk there’s a god, und part of vhy hyu steel go to church is becawze hyu steel vont to theenk dot if hyu iz chust goot enough, den hyu iz goink to get hyu god beck.”

“Wrong again.”

“But eet mebbe makes hyu feel better to go to de church, ja?” Jorgi prompted.

“…sure, let’s go with that.”

“Und hyu feel de obligation to help de church becawze de church helps people, und if hyu go dere und hyu use de space, den hyu gots to give beck becawze hyu gots enough money to do dot, ja?”

“I suppose it’s a form of noblesse oblige,” Tarvek allows.

“Und dot matters a lot to hyu, ja?” Jorgi prompts. “So iz a moral obligation? Altruism.”

“You could say so.”

“But! Hyu iz de shneaky consort, so iz not altruism, iz de ethical egoism!”

“I mean, sure. Sure. I don’t know where you’re going with this.”

“So ven hyu try to help de odder people, hyu iz helping hyuself feel good, but iz not hedonism, iz ethical egoism!”

“Not—isn’t that _my_ point?” Tarvek said.

“Nope! Hyu said dot if helping odder people made hyu feel good, it vos hedonism, but ven hyu do eet in dot context, iz not hedonism, iz _ethical egoism_ or eet’s altruism vit de bonus of de varm fuzzy feelings!”

“That is—I suppose it could apply to _some_ cases, but I hardly think it’s a solidly inclusive transitive property for ethical argument!” Tarvek protested.

“So hyu vont it to be hedonism ven hyu help people?” Jorgi prompted, leaning in and grinning widely.

“No, I just—”

“Hyu vont to be a hedonist, den?”

Tarvek’s breath hitched as he realized just how close the Jäger was.

Jorgi’s grin, already improbably wide, spread further.

“Green fire,” Tarvek whispered.

Jorgi leaned away and threw himself backwards into a chair. “Hoy! Hy theenk dot means Hy vin!”

“Wh—wait, no, how do _you_ win?!”

“Becawze hyu iz a verra shmott guy, und Hy made hyu speechless!” Jorgi declared. “So! Hy vin!”

Something in Tarvek snaps, and he lunges for Jorgi. The Jäger laughs, and Tarvek gets the feeling that he’s gearing up for a fight he’d definitely win.

Tarvek isn’t going for a fight, though.

He pushes Jorgi down on the bed and leans down. He doesn’t go for the punch Jorgi is clearly expecting. That’s fine.

“What,” he grits out between his teeth. “Do you want here?”

Jorgi grins at him. “Hy vant hyu to admit dot eet iz a better idea to chust let me not talk about philosophy, becawze Hy vill vin vhen hyu dun vant me to.”

“Not _that,”_ Tarvek spits. He glares down at Jorgi. “Agatha said you were looking at me like—like you _want_ me.”

Jorgi’s face twists. “Hoy, she—Hy’m sorry about dot, Hy didn’t theenk hyu’d effer notice und get all de bad feelings about it. Hy ken go avay und—”

“Shut up,” Tarvek says. “You talk more than I do. Was she right? Do you want me or not?”

“…she vos,” Jorgi says carefully.

Tarvek keeps glaring at him, and then sits back up. He’s straddling Jorgi’s waist. He decides he likes that, but not as much as he’d like other things. Quick as a flash, he rips open Jorgi’s top and exposes the fur underneath. A few buttons go flying, but Tarvek can sew them back on later. He’ll even have fun with it.

His eyes drift back up to Jorgi’s. The Jäger’s looking at him with undisguised anticipation. Tarvek wants to kiss him, but there’s something that needs to happen before he does.

“Don’t draw blood, don’t call me names, and the safe word is pineapple,” Tarvek says. “You got that?”

“Ho _yez!”_

Tarvek nods sharply. “We’ll feel out the rest as we go along. Now put those Jäger muscles to use and _hold me down!”_

o.o.o.o.o

It becomes as regular a thing as every other routine they’ve built up.

Tarvek can’t bring himself to mind.


End file.
